hink, Marlow, it was I who had to go and tell Mrs Anthony.
They had taken her down below somewhere, first-class saloon. I had to
go and tell her! That Flaherty, God forgive him, comes to me as white
as a sheet, "I think you are the proper person." God forgive him. I
wished to die a hundred times. A lot of kind ladies, passengers, were
chattering excitedly around Mrs Anthony--a real parrot house. The
ship's doctor went before me. He whispers right and left and then there
falls a sudden hush. Yes, I wished myself dead. But Mrs Anthony was a
brick.

Here Mr Powell fairly burst into tears. "No one could help loving
Captain Anthony. I leave you to imagine what he was to her. Yet before
the week was out it was she who was helping me to pull myself together."

"Is Mrs Anthony in England now?" I asked after a while.

He wiped his eyes without any false shame. "Oh yes." He began to look
for matches, and while diving for the box under the table added: "And
not very far from here either. That little village up there--you know."

"No! Really! Oh I see!"

Mr Powell smoked austerely, very detached. But I could not let him off
like this. The sly beggar. So this was the secret of his passion for
sailing about the river, the reason of his fondness for that creek.

"And I suppose," I said, "that you are still as `enthusiastic' as ever.
Eh? If I were you I would just mention my enthusiasm to Mrs Anthony.
Why not?"

He caught his falling pipe neatly. But if what the French call
_effarement_ was ever expressed on a human countenance it was on this
occasion, testifying to his modesty, his sensibility and his innocence.
He looked afraid of somebody overhearing my audacious--almost
sacrilegious hint--as if there had not been a mile and a half of lonely
marshland and dykes between us and the nearest human habitation. And
then perhaps he remembered the soothing fact for he allowed a gleam to
light up his eyes, like the reflection of some inward fire tended in the
sanctuary of his heart by a devotion as pure as that of any vestal.

It flashed and went out. He smiled a bashful smile, sighed:

"Pah! Foolishness. You ought to know better," he said, more sad than
annoyed. "But I forgot that you never knew Captain Anthony," he added
indulgently.

I reminded him that I knew Mrs Anthony; even before he--an old friend
now--had ever set eyes on her. And as he told me that Mrs Anthony had
heard of our meetings I wond